Masterchef UK Professionals
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Chettinad Spiced Beef with Bone Marrow Mash
Chettinad Spiced Beef with Bone Marrow Mash, Coconut Glazed Carrots, Tamarind and Coriander Chutney Gel, and Chettinad Beef Sauce.
{Gokul}: "In the previous round, I did not perform well, but my signature dish will be where I'll be showing my true culture, my heritage, and my roots of what I cook."
{Gokul}: "While I was cooking back in India and while I was studying, while I was travelling for work, from all those parts, there is something that I've cherished which I would love to bring onto my plate. For example, I've chosen Chettinad masala, which is a blend of 16 spices that I'm using to marinate my beef."
{Monica}: "What's the name of the dish you're doing?"
{Gokul}: "So it's a Chettinad beef, a Chettinad sauce, and it has coconut lace, carrot mash which is spiced and flavoured with bone marrow, and it has a chutney gel."
{Monica}: "So this is a real combination, a real kind of diary of your travels."
{Gokul}: "Yes, it is. It's a replica of what I've learned."
{Gokul}: "This dish has a few elements from different parts of India, so I want to combine that with the British local produce."
{Gokul}: "So the flavours of Chettinad are from the southern part of India, starting with cumin, coriander, curry leaf, dry red chilli, black cardamom, green cardamom, clove, star anise."
{Speaker 3}: "Sirloin steak that he's got on his bench. He's just cut them into some little wedges to sear on both sides. And then he's going to have to just be very careful because it will overcook very quickly."
{Gokul}: "That sauce takes at least an hour to make, and then it'll be tempered down with some coconut milk."
{Speaker 3}: "We've got Chettinad beef sauce, which I've just tasted, and it's absolutely delicious. It's like a big beef gravy, but it's full of flavour."
{Monica}: "He's roasting off an awful lot of bone marrow, and he's going to fold it through his mash. And you know what? If it's too much in there, it could be just too rich for that dish."
{Marcus}: "Coconut glazed carrots? Yes, please. We have a tamarind coriander gel, sharp and sweet with the coriander running through. I like the sound of that. I hope Gokul gets this all done, because it sounds delicious."
{Gokul}: "It was not that great. I completed the dish, but it was not up to the way that I was thinking it should be. Sauce gone save me, I guess."
{Speaker 3}: "The sauce is incredible. Full of flavour, full of spice. It's really well made. You can feel that the spices are working. They're full of energy. But your beef's not cooked well. I can see it's been flashed back in the pan by the fact that it's all sealed one side over here. And the carrots aren't cooked. They're rock hard. And I can't get the coconut within there. You've spent so much time making this delicious sauce. Everything else has suffered."
{Marcus}: "Gokul, my beef. It's alright. I think it's probably the best cooked of the three here. I'm really enjoying the spice rub around it."
{Monica}: "The coriander and tamarind chutney is delicious because you're getting that sharpness. The bone marrow mash is nice, but I think it's not quite tying in for me. What I've got is a crossover between your travels in India and what you are cooking now, and they're just not coming together brilliantly."
JUDGES DELIBERATION: {Monica}: "Gokul, what a sauce. Deep and rich. It was delicious. It was so complex and wonderful. There's clearly a very good cook in Gokul. Sadly, the rest of that dish didn't live up to the quality of that sauce."
{Speaker 3}: "I just think with that small piece of beef, he could have cooked it better and it would have worked for sure."
OVERALL VERDICT: A dish of highs and lows. The Chettinad sauce was universally praised as incredible, deep, rich, and full of complex spice. However, the beef was inconsistently cooked and the carrots were underdone and rock hard with no discernible coconut flavour. The bone marrow mash was pleasant but did not tie in with the Indian flavours. The individual elements did not come together as a cohesive dish. Gokul was eliminated.
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